1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a maintenance support system, a service providing method, and an authentication device, and more particularly, to a maintenance support system for providing a service for supporting maintenance of a multi-function peripheral (MFP).
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-81555 discloses an image forming system including an image forming apparatus and a maintenance/management server. The image forming apparatus stores history information indicating a history of operation of the image forming apparatus, and when detecting a failure, generates failure report information including items and values that are included in the history information and selected by a user, and sends it to the maintenance/management server. This makes it possible to send failure report information to the server while preventing user information from leaking without authorization by the user.
In a system for providing a service for supporting maintenance of an image forming apparatus to a user, it is desirable to prevent the service from being used by another person other than the user. It is also desirable to allow the user to easily use the service.